This invention relates to advertising sign assemblies.
Advertising signs are often constructed out of a number of individual panels, typically 14".times.4'. Usually panels are combined in multiples of ten to fourteen to form a full-sized billboard, which is suspended on a frame composed of horizontal rails attached to one or more vertical posts.
The panels which form the billboard design surface are normally hung to form the desired advertisement size at a base studio where graphic painting (logo, etc.) is completed. They thereupon are dismantled, trucked to a field location and erected.
Once in the field, the panels are moved from location to location until their geographic and temporal impact has been exhausted. They then return to the base studio, a new graphic painting is applied, and the cycle is repeated with another advertising message.
Installation and dismantling of a billboard in the field is generally quite difficult because of the height at which billboards are displayed and the size and weight of the panels themselves. Additionally, although the frames upon which the signs are suspended may be uniform in that they are usually composed of rails having upstanding flanges facing the back surface of the panel, the frames are rarely uniform in the distance between each individual rail.
Prior art assemblies which have been designed for quick and efficient assembling and dismantling (such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,634,980 or 3,120,069) have not been flexible in the type of frame to which the panels could be attached. On the other hand, panel assemblies which have been designed to accommodate any style of rail frame (such as the assembly shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,150,455) usually employ such a large number of individual clamps or other locking hardware that assembling or dismantling is difficult and time consuming.